Screams
by nothing-chan
Summary: "I'm there and they just keep dying and I can't do anything. I tell them to stop, please stop dying, but they won't stop dying and they won't stop killing. Please make them stop."


It was exactly midnight when Arthur Kirkland woke up to an earth shattering scream.

The boy sat up quickly, chest heaving, eyes glancing at the lamp glowing from beside his bed, book sliding off from his chest to tumble to the ground, pages scattering and shivering in fear at the noise.

The wail filled the whole room, echoed through the house, resounded off of every empty room and seeped through every crack. The hollow, aching call slithered under dressing tables and spread out across silk sheets, climbing up to wind around Arthur's own throat, choking off his breath and making him sputter in the soft light. It filled every inch of the earth with pain and sadness and so much agony it was hard to believe any person could remain alive after hearing it, that any person would _want_ to live after feeling it crawl underneath their nails and claw at their eardrums.

Then, it stopped, its wake nothing but ringing silence, a song that fell uncharacteristically flat against Arthur's ears, still overwhelmed by the shriek before. A dog barked outside, a siren sounded, a gate slammed, a bomb dropped, a child cried, Arthur breathed heavily, blocking out every noise with his cacophonous sucking of in and out. Next to him the clock ticked, 12:01.

Then it started again.

Arthur was out of his bed in a flash, heart thudding capriciously against his rib cage, spreading liquid energy thorough his body, carrying the primal horror to the cold floor slapping against his feet below. It got closer and closer with every step, assaulting his brain and clenching his stomach so hard he thought he might vomit, mouth tasting like metal when his teeth bit into his tongue, the only thing he could do to keep from screaming himself.

He turned a corner, his robe brushing the floor, and flung open the door concealing the bawling boy, slamming it against the wall, a desperate attempt to drown out the sound now roaring in Arthur's face.

"Alfred!"

Alfred lay on the bed, twisting and writhing, like an animal trapped in a cage. He banged the wall and arched his back and yelled so piercingly it sounded more like a dying rabbit than a human. Arthur ran to his bed side, grabbing on to his slick face, fingers digging into his scalp, trying to open his eyes.

"Alfred, Alfred, wake up! Listen to me, Alfred! You're dreaming, please wake up!" Arthur was crying, shaking the younger boy hard, the screams a poignant stench that made his eyes water without control. Alfred kept howling, throwing blankets off of him and mauling Arthur's hands, leaving skin reddening scratches across his pale skin.

"Please, Alfred, please!" Arthur grabbed onto his cheeks, wet with tears and sweat, cold hands jolting him to a stupor. Alfred began to shake terribly, trembling as his nails drew blood against his own palms, body failing with every vehement breath he took.

"…Arthur? Arthur?" His glasses were off, so when he opened his eyes, Arthur saw the blue so clearly it shot through the dark, a submarine in the night.

"Alfred, it's me…" Arthur ran a hand over Alfred's hair, smoothing it down, feeling him twitch underneath his touch.

"They keep dying, they keep dying, all of them are dying, dying…dying…" Arthur's breath caught in his throat and he bit his lip hard, not wanting to meet the half-open ocean below him, not wanting to see the anguish he knew was there.

"It's a dream love, a dream; you're here, with me. It's all a dream," Arthur continued to shush him like a mother, maneuvering his head to his chest, fingers combing through the knotted tendrils.

"No, no, no, no," Alfred shook his head, sucking in deeply, whole frame shifting to place his weight on Arthur, "I'm there and they just keep dying and I can't do anything. I tell them to stop, please stop dying, but they won't stop dying and they won't stop killing. Please make them stop."

He could not make them stop dying, no matter what he did. He could not go back in time, stop the bullet, stop the war, make the favored leaders understand that they were not the ones who would pick up the guns and kill; they were not the ones who would wake up screaming in the night. He could not stop young, innocent, beautiful Alfred F. Jones from getting on the boat, uniform pressed, smile as wide as the sun, could not stop his bottomless wish to serve his country, could not change his romanticized view of war, he could not make it go away.

"It's so dirty, I keep washing my hands but the muds still there and the dead bodies and the blood and so much mud all the time. Arthur, and Arthur won't write me back. Why didn't you write me back?" The torment that seeped out of his words made Arthur want to gag, retching slightly inside.

"I didn't get a letter," He reached his hand down to grasp onto Alfred's, not surprised the ever-present tremor was there, making his arm quake.

"I wrote you every day, I told you I loved you. I love you, I love you, I love you…" He pulled Arthur's arm toward him and kissed it one million times, mouth damp and warm with screams.

One would think Arthur would have run out of tears by now, every night bleeding his supply dry, listening to Alfred shriek and convulse in his harrowing flashbacks, but every time he sat with the wounded boy he wept, tears dripping down to disappear into Alfred's hair. Every night he held his head to his heart, hoping the steady beat would remind him what was real, that the mud and the trenches and the pungent death were not real, but he was, and that he loved him so much it sometimes hurt, leaving him light headed and bent to the floor.

But Alfred would never know what it was like to feel that way, he would not understand. Maybe at some point in time he did know, heart jumping and blood racing when he caught sight of Arthur, but he had long forgotten now, each and every day pushed closer and closer into the sinkhole of mud and war. All he knew now was to kill to crawl to scream to survive, not to love to whisper to kiss to hold. He remembered dirt and cigarettes and gun powder and rows of barbed wire, not summer or carousels or flowers or light. He knew of war not love, dead men not Arthur, a bruised, empty mannequin now, once a soldier, once a boy, now standing lifeless in the dark.

On February 22, 1919, in New York, New York, at 12:30 in the morning, Alfred F. Jones stopped screaming and fell asleep.

* * *

_Hello._

_I'm pretty much what you would call a history weeaboo, especially about wars, and I get really really angry when people portray war in a positive light or act as if it has no consequences at all. I know people who have been in wars, it isn't pretty, or beautiful, or anything anyone should ever have to go through._

_World War 1 to me is probably the most terrifying of all, it kind of gets overlooked and it shouldn't, because it was absolutely horrid, one could argue one of the worst wars in history. There were people killing themselves to get out of the trenches, which to me is devastating._

_That being said (aka rant over) I wanted to write something showing the aftermath of war on someone as positive and starry-eyed as Alfred. Pretty gruesome._

_Please review, favorite, and learn something new today._


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